30 and gIving myself In the mirror a bitter- sweet smile of understanding and sym- pa th y. I WILL cite one more example of the use and value of self-pity as a way of coping with reality, not selected at random, as were the foregoing, but chosen specifically to show that the emo- tion under review is not always unilat- I " ..." b d d era, or narcISsIstIc, ut can an oes often Involve a senSe of other people. In the town where I now live there is a woman, middle-aged and recently widowed, whom I knew fairly well at the time I ran into her at a political clambake last summer. The discussion at our table got around to the stock market, and I remembered a hot new c;ecurity I had just learned about from some friends of mine, men high up in \\1 all Street. It was one of those low- priced issues selling in the category reminiscent of hat sizes-6U, 7, and the like-so-called "growth stocks," which, because of some electronic break- through or a fat government contract, are bound to soar within a few months to many times their original value. Should I recommend the stock to this wIdow? I thought fast. (luick thInking has got me Into more than one jam, and before I knew It I was urgIng her to sell everything her husband had left her and put it into Astro-Nucleonics, Inc It was essential, I told her when she took me aside later to ask for further particulars, that anybody interested move quickly, as news of the government contract the firm was getting would be public knowl- edge:: in a few days, after which the stock would begin its skyrocketIng. The woman did as ] suggested, but she need not have hurried. The gov- ernmen t con tract fell through and the stock sank within a month to 20, where it is now, paying no dividends I have spent most of mv time since then avoiding this woman. I saw her recentlv on the main street of town, wearing a shawl and pulling along two little girls, equally shabbily dressed. They are evidently in classic penury. I ducked Into an alley till they were gone. The following Saturday morning, as I was padding through town in sneakers and smoked glasses, trying to get some weekend shopping done, I saw them again, and again ducked for cover. I waited till I thought the coast was clear, but it wasn't. When I stepped out onto Main Street once more, there they were, coming out of the fi ve-and-dime, the mother clutching a brown sack that had an air of containing matenals for all of them to twist into paper flowers, for sale to kind neighbors and people THé HIGH-HéAR. T 5 Assumption of erect posture in man lifts the heart higher above the ground than in any other anima] no,,"" living except the giraffe and the elephant -From an arttcle tttied ' Anatomy" tn the Encyclopædta Brztanntca. Proud elephant, by accident of bulk, Upreared the mammoth cardiacal hulk That plunged his storm of blood through canvas veIns Enthroned benedth his tusks, unseen, it reigns In dark state, stoutly ribbed, suffused with doubt, Where lions have to leap to seek it out Herbivorous giraffe, In dappled love WIth green and sunstruck edibles above, Yearned with his bones, in an aeon or so, His glad heart left his ankles far below, And there, where forelegs turn to throat, it trem- Bles like a blossom halfway up a stem. Poor man, an ape anxious to use his paws, Became erect and held the pose because His brain, developing beyond hIs ken, .K.ept whispering, "The universe wants men." And thus he strains to keep his heart aloft, Too hIgh and low at once, too hard and soft -JOHN UPDIKE . hurrying to the theatre. They were heading straight toward me. If there was anything for me to do but flatten myself into the nearest door- way, gntting my teeth and cursing my luck, I would like to know what it was. H ere I was, established at last in a fine community in which I had spent years putting down roots, with my own house, where I could sit, after a day's work, in a spacious glassed-in living room high on a hill, overlooking my de- fects-and now this. \Vhat a rotten break.! I might have to leave town. The woman had seen me, and stopped on the sidewalk in front of the doorway. She faced me squarely "Any more bright ideas, Mister Financial Ex- "I" pert ( "I'll buy it back at what you paid for it," I offered, stepping out. "No, thanks. We don't take charity." "Then won't you join me in some lunch?" I said, for the place before which we stood happened to be the Chinese Gardens, newly opened. "1 hear the food is very good here." "Thank you again. The answer IS stI11 the same." Now, the woman had no one to blame:: but herself for the dIfficult) she was in. Anyone who lIstens to every c.I. . damn fool with a tip on the stock market deserves what he gets-and that in- cludes me for listening to the hot shots no less than her for lIstening to me. Nevertheless, I felt wretched. We were in this together-no man is an island, her misfortunes were mine, and so on and so on, till there was nothIng for it but to go into the Chinese Gardens alone and head for the booth nearest the bar, there to drown my miseries in Löwenbräu. I ordered glass after glass of my beloved brew, which they had on draft there, and also an egg roll and a plate of pressed duck. I had more beers than I can remember. Later, the waiter hrought a few fortune cookies, one of which I picked up and began abstractedly to eat without first remov- ing the prognostication. It was not until I had been chewing it for some moments that I detected an alien sensation, and, turning to look into the small wall mir- ror In the booth, stuck my tongue out and found adhering to it, sure enough, a small strip of paper on whIch appeared the assertion that I must be careful in mone) matte::rs. Still gazing into the mirror, I shook my head, as though to say to myself, "How do you stand It? " T HE whole pOInt I am trying to make, of course, is that that is how I stand it I bend in order that I do not break I see it through by frankly and freely embracing the total human out- rage of which I form a modest part, a mInuscule fragment in a hostIle, or at any rate incomprehensIble, Whole.